Thursday, March 29, 2012

Since it's now officially the offseason, I'm resurrecting Breakout Past, that every-Thursday (usual caveats about having time and subject matter, as well as not forgetting, apply here) series looking at the history of Penn State hockey.

First up for this go-around: a gallery of schedule posters from Icers past. Apologies for the quality of the pictures - as I learned the hard way, taking photos of posters is really hard. You can't use a flash or any kind of direct light because of the glossy paper, and you need a collection of hockey pucks within reach to hold down the corners. It probably helps to have a nice camera not part of your phone as well, but I wouldn't know about that. As always, click for full size.

Wednesday, March 28, 2012

* I'm sure you know already, particularly since I immediately began including her in Commit Cycle and on the Current Commitments page. However, now that the end-of-season insanity has died down, I wanted to make sure that this noteworthy recruit got her own post.

Petersen has been a key cog on a Minnetonka team that has now won back-to-back Minnesota AA championships.

Then again, "key cog" might be understanding things a little. As a sophomore in 2010-2011, through a 23-1-1 regular season, Petersen was second on the Skippers in goals (17, four of which were game winners) and fourth in points (34). She saved her best, though, for the 6AA section and state tournaments. She had a goal and an assist in each of two blowout wins over Robbinsdale Armstrong and Buffalo, and following a section title win over Benilde-St. Margaret's, Tonka advanced to the Minnesota championships at the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul for the first time in program history.

In a 4-1 state semifinal win over Coon Rapids Petersen had three assists, then topped that performance in the final against Edina.

Open ice was at a premium for the vast majority of the second and third period. But in the final minute of regulation of Saturday’s Class 2A girls’ hockey title game, Minnetonka’s Amy Petersen suddenly found herself alone in front of the Edina net.

She scored up high with 39.6 seconds left, breaking a tie that had existed since the first period and giving the Skippers a 3-2 victory and a state championship.

Petersen also scored in the first period of the game and assisted on the only other Skippers goal. Afterwards, she spoke with Twin Cities TV station KARE about the game, her goal, and (bonus for people trying to write a post about her) the type of player she is.

Tonka, as mentioned, won it all again this past season, taking the championship 3-0 over 2012 defense recruit Paige Jahnke and her Roseville Raiders. The Skippers weren't the only thing repeating either - Petersen was named to the all-tournament team for a second time. This accolade came largely through her pair of assists in the state title game, and by scoring the second most important goal of her life in the semifinal against Lakeville North. Trailing 1-0 late, Minnetonka's Sidney Morin forced overtime with 20.9 seconds left. Then...

[Petersen] scored at the 6:21 mark of overtime...[she] took a pass from Morin at the blue line, maneuvered around a Panthers defender and put the puck over goalie Cassie Alexander's shoulder.

Can't teach clutch. Luckily, Petersen already knows it.

In addition to her tournament honors, she was named an honorable mention to the AP's all-state team and serves as one of Minnetonka's alternate captains. That latter point shouldn't be lost as Josh Brandwene seeks to assemble his first teams in a manner that includes plenty of leadership and playmaking ability. In Petersen, he decidedly has some of both.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Abbey Dufoe is back with some engaging reading framed around three infographics containing statistics on various social media sites. No, it's not about hockey, but it's still topical - if you clicked through to this post from Twitter or Facebook (unfortunately, there is no TYT Pinterest yet), you owe Ms. Dufoe a couple minutes of your time.

Icers Nittany Lions forward George Saad gets some nice run in a story primarily about his brother. I can't think of anything else to say about it that carries the appropriate amount of both pith and snark, so just read it.

Ever wonder how the Ice Pavilion would hold up under the scrutiny of an intrepid reviewer who has taken in venues like Ford Field (for my money, the NFL's best stadium), PNC Park (for my money, MLB's best stadium) and Consol Energy Center (never been there, but it's new and probably nice)? Don't worry, it wasn't all bad, I promise. But it will make you excited to bail on the place.

Remember PA Puck? Apparently, they threw up their hands and quit on February 29th.

Ultimately we just didn’t have enough site traffic and certainly not enough advertisers in order to continue.

I don't mean to throw dirt on the site's grave, but...it just launched in October - they didn't even give it a full hockey season. I'm not privy to their traffic numbers, but they have 621 Twitter followers (TYT has 548 and has been at it a year longer). They have 1,171 Facebook likes (TYT has 103...wooooo). They may not have had many advertisers, but they certainly had more than zero. To build that kind of a following in five months, that's a pretty good start in my opinion, especially considering that very few sites of any kind are all that popular in their first year (for what it's worth, whatever "popularity" TYT enjoys largely began in months 12 and 14 according to the stats). What exactly were they expecting, Puck Daddy numbers from the word "go?" The whole thing just smells of unreasonable expectations and prematurely throwing in the towel to me.

Of course, maybe they'd still be chugging along if they gave Pennsylvania's two NHL teams, one AHL team, one ECHL team, one OHL team and six NCAA DI men's and women's programs not named the Hershey Bears more than cursory attention.

The women's team had their end-of-season banquet on Saturday, and based on the post-event Twitter traffic, a blast was had by all involved. Here's crutch-toting outgoing captain Sara Chroman posing with the coaching staff.

Since we're new at this whole "NCAA" thing, consider this sort of a primer on some of the common discussions surrounding the NCAA hockey tournament. Presently, the 16-team field plays down to the Frozen Four through four regional tournaments in mostly-empty neutral-site arenas in locales like Albany and Green Bay. The Frozen Four is sometimes in off-the-wall places that have less than zero college hockey presence (this year, it's in Tampa, FL and "hosted" by Alabama-Huntsville - figure that one out). This Boston College blog proposes slashing the field back to 12 teams and only including major northeastern and midwestern cities in the rotations for the various rounds of the tournament.

At the risk of alienating many of you, I have tremendous respect for the University of Michigan and its hockey program...the tradition, that rink, those fans, Red, the players, all of it. Read this story - originating in the era of six-team, campus-site regionals that draw feelings of nostalgia from BC Interruption - and begin to dread Penn State's trying to go into Ann Arbor and win.

Thursday, March 22, 2012

Welcome to TYT's second annual "I'm a Penn State fan. Who should I root for in the NCAA tournament?" post (here's last year's version). To reiterate the rules, since I don't really expect you to click the link: this post is not about prediction, serious analysis, or even personal preference. It's simply an attempt to rank the four schools in each region in terms of their relationship to PSU. Sometimes it involves past events, sometimes it involves future implications. Sometimes there's not a ton to go on, and I'll usually drop those schools somewhere in the middle. But if Penn State is your only concern, this is how I think your rooting interests should play out.

Until Penn State has a direct reason (ie. participation) to care about the NCAA tournament, I'll defer to others for the hardcore stuff. Chris Peters, through his blog The United States of Hockey, is doing fantastic in-depth previews of each region (East, Northeast, Midwest - the West is coming tomorrow), and I encourage you to go over there for further reading.

Finally, before we get started, here are the tournament brackets (interactive and PDF) from NCAA.com.

1. Michigan State. I tend to be conflicted when it comes to the whole "root for your conference" thing. On one hand, it's nice to have a positive public perception of your team's league. On the other, you have to recruit against these guys. The good news is that we're not talking about college football. Part of the genius of the PairWise Rankings used in our sport of choice is the tangible benefit of your opponents' success, something that goes well beyond getting some nice words from a talking head on ESPN. It doesn't start benefiting Penn State now (it will as early as next season, when PSU plays the Spartans), but we might as well get in the habit now.

2. Union. Hey, speaking of teams (most likely) on our schedule! Sure, like I just said, there's no direct benefit of Union's success here to Penn State. Still, it would be pretty cool if the Dutchmen carried something like a Frozen Four appearance from this season into next season's games with the Nittany Lions. Even more cool, naturally, would be if PSU could beat a team like that.

3. UMass-Lowell. The River Hawks get the third-place nod based on their pair of Pennsylvania natives, backup goalie Brian Robbins (Scotrun) and freshman forward Terrence Wallin (Yardley), a solid contributor. UML is one of three tournament teams with multiple Keystone Staters on the roster, and each gets a boost since what's good for PA hockey will generally be good for PSU. Also, Lowell went from 5-25-4 last season to the NCAA tournament this season, so not enjoying their success makes you un-American. Or something like that.

4. Miami. It was a tough decision to stick the RedHawks on the bottom, but since the Pegula Ice Arena is now under construction, those rink visits taken by PSU administration over a year ago seem a little less important. Besides, from what we know (or have inferred, anyway), Steve Cady wasn't as influential on Joe Battista and crew as, say, Notre Dame's new barn.

1. Air Force. There are numerous reasons to go with the Falcons. For starters, they join Union and Michigan State as the only teams in the tournament known to be on PSU's schedule next year. Once upon a time, former Icers Bobby Pate and Mike Carrano transferred from Air Force. And, of course, who doesn't love an underdog? From a practical standpoint, it seems like rattling the existing college hockey power structure would be beneficial to a new program in some way that I can't articulate.

2. Maine. The Black Bears are not an obvious choice on the surface, but they might be worth Penn State's support for the simple reason that they, too, were once new in town. Maine hockey began in 1977 (extremely recent by some programs' standards), and in their 16th season they were 42-1-2 and national champions. Consider, too, that the 1992-1993 season came in their ninth season of Hockey East play after starting out with a stretch of independent seasons - in other words, PSU's timeline might be a little accelerated compared to theirs. Maine is also one of the three teams with two Pennsylvanians - York's Dan Sullivan, their starting goalie, and sophomore forward Jon Swavely from Reading. If nothing else, hope they do it for Joe Wunderler, who has had a rough go of things since running into Chris Hansen.

I hate that I can't reference To Catch A Predator without it being a little awkward now. Damn you, Jerry Sandusky.

3. Minnesota-Duluth. As mentioned, I've devalued the fabled arena visits - which were highly influential last year, look how far we've come! - somewhat, but in a tight race for the third spot, things like that prove important, as does the fact that senior goalie Kenny Reiter, a Pittsburgh native, could be the single most important Pennsylvanian in the tournament. Finally, of course, UMD gets a little bump as a thank you to Scott Sandelin for staying put (I've made no secret of the fact that I would have been extremely disappointed with his hiring at Penn State).

PS. I won't hold it against you if you drop UMD below Boston College, in light of this.

4. Boston College. The Eagles are the final team with two Pennsylvanians, one of which is starting goalie Parker Milner - like Reiter, a Pittsburgh native. PA, especially the western part, certainly puts out a ton of goalies, doesn't it? However, they don't really have anything on either side of the ledger beyond that. Plus, it's Boston College. Gross. I'm glad they got stuck in a stacked region for PSU interests.

1. Michigan. After the not-yet-existing Big Ten took shots from all corners last year for only getting Michigan into the show, the Wolverines represented their future conference quite well by advancing all the way to overtime of the national championship game. On the way, they beat current WCHAers/future NCHCers Nebraska-Omaha, Colorado College and North Dakota before falling to another, Minnesota-Duluth, in that final. Another run like that would be just dandy from a Penn State perspective. And who knows, maybe it will lead to more hilariousness like this:

2. Cornell. Trivia time: Name the only three still-active, still-varsity programs the 1939-1947 Penn State varsity played. Answer: Army, Colgate and Cornell. An 8-1 loss at Ithaca on February 5, 1944 was the result against the Big Red back in those days. In the present day, PSU and CU have at least held discussions aimed at giving the Nittany Lions a shot at correcting that losing series history. Those two things are good enough for the second slot in a region significantly thinner than the Northeast.

3. Ferris State. FSU is more or less the story of the tournament, and a likely favorite team for anyone who doesn't have other allegiances. Mired in mediocrity seemingly since forever (except 2002-2003), relegated to a new-and-diminished WCHA and with zero NHL draft picks on the team, the Bulldogs have emerged with a vengeance this season, to the tune of 23-11-5 and even topping the polls for a couple weeks in February. Still, this is a post purely about Penn State interests, so that's only good for a tiebreaker over...

4. Denver. Last year, I placed the Pioneers at the bottom of their region because I didn't want George Gwozdecky to drive his asking price up. Seriously. This year, I'm just doing it because there's no good reason not to. Once upon a time, when the Icers still ruled the ACHA, DU tried to schedule them (the plan was eventually blown up over the fact that PSU would have counted against their game limit). While I do give them credit for attempting to give out the opportunity, that and 50 cents will get you...I don't know, a newspaper? Who reads newspapers anymore?

1. Minnesota. The last of three future Big Ten schools in the tournament already has a direct connection with Penn State through Max Gardiner, the former Gopher who returned to the USHL this season and will join the Nittany Lions next year.

2. Boston University. Battista was on a visit here (receiving a tour of Agganis Arena from none other than Mike Eruzione) on the day he received his text message confirmation of Terry Pegula's donation. The place must be good luck. Or something.

3. Western Michigan. Last year, here's what I wrote about the Broncos:

Don't we kind of owe it to society to wish the best for one of those weaker CCHA schools we're supposedly killing off with the whole Big Ten thing? Plus, like Union and Merrimack, they're a nice story - they haven't been to this show since 1996 and came oh so close to their first conference title of any kind before falling to Miami in the CCHA title game.

This year? Not so much. Since that post, they found a conference home in the Big Ten's archnemesis, the NCHC. After losing coach Jeff Blashill to the Detroit Red Wings, they hired failed NHL coach Andy Murray. And they kept winning. It's a short road from scrappy and beloved underdog to kind of annoying, isn't it? Of course, none of this really has anything to do with Penn State, so they join Ferris State as maybe the only completely neutral teams in the tournament.

4. North Dakota. The Flickertails (one of them anyway) hate Penn State. Fine by me, I hate them too. And just because it annoys someone who supports them, here's the legendary "We Are - Penn State Hockey!" video.

Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Behind third-period power play goals from Evan Goetz and Dan Echeverri, the Florida Gulf Coast Eagles dethroned Grand Valley State 4-2 for the ACHA D2 crown on their home ice Tuesday afternoon.

GVSU - the team that advanced from the tournament's Pool D with a 4-2 win over the Ice Lions Sunday - turned a 1-0 deficit after the first period into a 2-1 lead entering the third, only to subquently see the the result flipped back the other way. The Brothers Wilhelm, Brad and Chad (aside: their parents may be pure evil) provided the goal scoring for the Lakers, who won the 2011 national championship with a win over Michigan State.

A repeat was not to be, however. The Eagles needed only 61 total seconds on the two third-period GVSU penalties to swing the score in their favor. Goalie Ryan Lynch made sure it held up, as he turned aside 47 of 49 shots. That Lakers' Josh LaVigne was also stellar in defeat, making 36 saves before FGCU's 40th shot found a vacated cage to seal the win.

The two teams advanced to the championship game with decisive semifinal wins on Monday. Pool C winner Florida Gulf Coast topped Pool A victor Michigan State 5-2, while Grand Valley State thumped Pool B's William Paterson 7-2.

While hockey has become a year-round endeavor thanks to summer showcases, camps,
etc., the primary hockey season (the one with easy-to-access info) is
unfortunately winding down, and that of course includes the teams housing Penn
State's recruits. As each player's season concludes, they'll be removed from
this post as this feature fades into the offseason as well. So far, the removed
players include:

2012 D Sarah Wilkie. Wilkie completed her senior season at Williston Northampton School with a loss to Lawrence Academy in the New England Division I prep semifinals. The Wildcats were 16-10-3 overall.

2012 D Paige Jahnke. Roseville High School won the Minnesota Section 4AA championship and advanced all the way to the state title game, but fell 3-0 to Minnetonka.

2013 F Amy Petersen. Petersen, Josh Brandwene's first known 2013 recruit, was the second leading scorer on that Minnetonka team that has now won the Minnesota AA state championship in back to back seasons.

2012 G Celine Whitlinger/2012 F Micayla Catanzariti/2012 F Katie Zinn. The three Gilmour Academy players finished the season 28-21-9 after losing in the Mid-Am District Tournament.

Colorado finished 8th at the JWHL playoffs and will now proceed to the USA Hockey Tier I 19U national championships in Malborough, MA (it helps to be in a district thin on Tier I girls programs when you're 9-29-5 overall)...they'll lead off with the Rice Knights on the 28th, followed by Little Caesars on the 29th and the Madison Capitols on the 30th.

The Pens Elite girls will also be among the several PSU commits headed to Malborough, MA from March 28th through April 1st for the USA Hockey Tier I 19U national championships, as they'll represent the Mid-Am District...PPE open with Chicago Mission on the 28th, followed by the Minnesota Thoroughbreds on the 29th and the New Jersey Rockets on the 30th.

NSA finished 5th at the JWHL playoffs (the games above), but greater heights awaited last weekend when the Mountaineers won the New York Tier I 19U tournament with an 8-1 win over the Troy-Albany Ice Cats and a 3-2 win over the Rochester Edge...Laurenzi had five assists in those two wins...NSA now advances to USA Hockey Tier I 19U nationals, where they'll play the Anaheim Lady Ducks on the 28th, the East Coast Wizards on the 29th and Shattuck-St. Mary's on the 30th.

The Bulldogs will participate in the USA Hockey Tier II 19U girls' national championships beginning on March 28th as the host team...their scheduled games are against the Keweenaw Storm on the 28th, the Mid Fairfield CT Stars on the 29th and the Cape Cod Sharks on the 30th.

While McGee's club team, Taft, struggled through a disappointing campaign, her Connecticut Polar Bears, are the hosts of the Tier I 19U nationals...they'll play the Washington Pride on the 28th, Assabet Valley on the 29th and Honeybaked (Birdie Shaw and Jordin Pardoski's team) on the 30th.

As menioned, Honeybaked will also be at nationals, thanks to sweeping through the MAHA playoffs...in addition to McGee's Polar Bears team on the 30th, they'll play Assabet Valley on the 28th and the Washington Pride on the 29th.

NAHA completed a typically-successful season at 55-15-7 and by winning the JWHL title - an accomplishment that required a shootout in the semifinals against Edge School...Yoxheimer finished with 17 goals in 51 games.

Yoxheimer is in the third row, third from the left, if you can't tell.

While hockey has become a year-round endeavor thanks to summer showcases, camps, etc., the primary hockey season (the one with easy-to-access info) is unfortunately winding down, and that of course includes the teams housing Penn State's recruits. As each player's season concludes, they'll be removed from this post as this feature fades into the offseason as well. So far, the removed players include:

2013 D Thomas Welsh. His top-seeded Salisbury Prep was stunned in the Stuart/Corkery Tournament (the New England prep championship) semifinals by Lawrence Academy.

2012 D Luke Juha. Juha played on the gold medal winning Team Canada West at the World Junior A Challenge. His Vernon Vipers, though, were 30-27-3 and missed the BCHL playoffs for the first time since 2000-2001, thanks in part to Juha's absence for most of the season due to injury.

2014 D Bo Pellah. The youthful Langley Rivermen also missed the BCHL playoffs at 19-35-6, although Pellah led the team's blueliners in scoring.

2014 D Kevin Kerr. Team Comcast missed the AYHL playoffs and then lost out to the North Jersey Avalanche for the Atlantic District bid to USA Hockey nationals on March 17th and 18th. Meanwhile Kerr's prep team, Holy Ghost, lost to La Salle College High School for the Flyers Cup title on March 14th.

For the second consecutive season, injuries on the Storm's blueline have forced Brooks to move to defense...his reaction: "All I want to do is win. Sometimes you can’t control the situation and you have to adjust. That’s just part of life."

Thanks largely to Glen's six points, the Saints finished polishing off the Thunder in four straight... they will now play the Fort McMurray Oil Barons in the North Division final (the AJHL semifinals) beginning on Friday.

Brooks, the South Division's top seed, joined Spruce Grove in sweeping their second-round series; they will face the Olds Grizzlies in the South Division final starting Friday...Linaker (knee) has been sidelined since early December.

Despite Loik's first-period goal, the Vees' historic 42-game winning streak was snapped in the final game of the regular season...prior to that defeat, Penticton last lost when Joe Paterno was still a head coach (November 5th, to be specific)...despite a 54-4-2 regular season record, David Thompson's Chiefs are making the Vees earn their way through the Interior Conference semifinals...Loik was second star of Penticton's Game 2 overtime loss.

McAdam has worked his way back into splitting starts with Stephon Williams...he followed up a solid outing against Sioux Falls with an overtime win over Youngstown...in the win over the Stampede, McAdam outdueled former goaltending partner Jay Williams... "Getting a win against an old team mate like Jay was pretty nice," he said. "I think we both had jitters before the game but I believe we had the advantage because we knew more about Jay than they knew about us.”

With Milley back in the fold and playing well, the Lumber Kings finished 32-24-6, good for sixth place in the league and a date with third-seeded Brockville in the first round of the playoffs...Milley then entered full-on beast mode with 10 points in five games as Pembroke upset the Braves and advanced to the CCHL semifinals.

Skoff had a stellar two weeks, tying league leader Zane Gothberg (a Boston Bruins draft pick and a North Dakota commit) with his fourth and fifth shutouts of the season...the second was particularly tough since it required him to surive overtime and four shootout attempts unscathed.

The Chiefs finished a solid regular season 33-22-5, good for fourth place and the final playoff spot in the Interior Conference...Thompson's 30 points during the regular season (9-21) were tops among blueliners and his 67 penalty minutes were two off of the team lead...he was given the Chiefs' team award for best defenseman this season and was also third star of Chilliwack's most recent game - a 3-1 win over the highly-favored Penticton Vees that stunningly tied their playoff series at two games apiece.